Escaped Killer’s Getaway Car Found, Schools on Lockdown
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Michigan Department of Corrections(IONIA, Mich.) — A small Indiana town is the focus of a massive law enforcement manhunt for a quadruple-murderer who escaped from prison after his vehicle was located there.
Schools in Shipshewana, Ind., have been placed on lockdown after police found the red Jeep Cherokee that was hijacked by escaped inmate Michael David Elliot Sunday night.
Elliot is believed to have donned a white kitchen uniform in order to escape from the Ionia Correctional Facility in Michigan, where he was serving four life sentences for four murders committed in 1993.
Authorities said Elliot somehow cut a hole in the prison’s fence and escaped on foot to nearby Ionia, where he used a box cutter or knife to carjack and abduct a woman driving a red Jeep. She escaped and called 911 at a gas station in Elkhart, Ind., police said.
The woman’s 911 call triggered a massive search for the vehicle driven by Elliot, which was found in Shipshewana on Monday.
Authorities have interviewed the carjacked woman and are taking her back home to Michigan now. Elliot remains at large and is the subject of a manhunt.
Authorities have not released any surveillance tape at this time.
Elliot, 40, has brown eyes and brown hair, stands 5-foot-8 and weighs 165 pounds, according to Department of Corrections records.
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